Cammie Mannino, the owner for 20 wildly successful years, decided it was time for new adventures and, despite the interest of many buyers, made the decision to leave behind just a lovely memory of a magical little place that once existed in downtown Rochester. A customer bought the very last book on our shelves (a book about children with Down Syndrome that went to a special ed teacher!) on Saturday, January 12, and all the bright red shelves and oak tables went to good homes as well. Our little bookstore - every book and every shelf - has been thoroughly recycled into libraries, classrooms, babies' bedrooms, all kinds of nooks and crannies in people's lives. That's been a great comfort to the whole staff.

However, the website lives on for a few more months! On the Book Review page, we've listed our favorite books for all ages - the ones that we'd included in our gift booklet, "Growing Up with Books," which we distributed during the sale. Since our 450 copies got snatched up during the one week sale (which we'd thought would last for a month!), we thought the website was a way to bring the lists of our favorite books to more of our friends. We hope you find it useful.

Cammie's farewell essay to all of our customers is below. We thank you all for being, right to the end, the very best friends a little bookstore could have! Thanks for visiting. - The Staff of Halfway Down the Stairs

"Halfway down the Stairs is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it." That's the beginning of the A.A. Milne poem after which this little hobbit hole of a bookstore was named. And who knew when we opened 20 years ago that the description would be so apt?! This amazing little place we all kept inventing and re-creating over so many years took on a life of its own, quite separate from mine - a funny, warm, intelligent, opinionated, lively spirit - that endeared itself to all of us more and more as the years went on.

Ok, I confess, I instigated it, with more than a little help from my husband, Reg. We ferreted out this cozy little spot halfway under the sidewalk and filled it with all the goodies I'd always dreamed of having in a bookstore - rocking chairs, a fireplace, braided rugs, music, puppets and thousands and thousands of beautiful books. But that lively little Halfway Down the Stairs spirit, embodied for me in that child in the striped shirt on our sign outside and on every red and white bag, that spirit gathered a whole host of co-conspirators, beginning with all the marvelous people on staff who brought their wit, their love of children and reading, their eye for beauty, their silliness and sense of play, their genuine delight in being of service to others to share with whoever came through the door.

But our customers were also our co-conspirators. You contributed to that Halfway Down the Stairs mischievous, warm, lively spirit just as importantly - not only by bringing your dollars that could have been spent at what Sarah liked to call the "evil chain stores" - but by laughing when we read you Bark George, by tearing up when we showed you Story for Bear, by tapping your toes to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by jiving along to Shake Dem Halloween Bones at a school assembly, or encouraging a whole classroom to fall in love with an old yellow dog as you quietly read Because of Winn Dixie. You and that kid on the stairs lulled babies to sleep with their first books, "It's time for bed little mouse, little mouse, darkness is falling all over the house." The spirit of that reader in the striped jersey stood proudly by as you courageously taught Shabanu and other "controversial books" because they were just too good and too powerful to miss. That warm hearted kid in tennis shoes tried to comfort your grief with Badger's Parting Gifts and shared your reverence for the natural world in the shining, quiet pages of Owl Moon. Without your friendship, your delight in the quirky, the unique, without your commitment to the best you could find, the crazy, wonderful spirit of this little bookstore would never have survived. You promenaded to the park behind Mrs. Mallard. You broke your broom playing quidditch and shared your poems at the Cafeway Halfway. You cast your votes in the "Send a Character to Washington" election. You read "dangerous" books behind caution tape in front of the store during Banned Books week. You danced with a Snowman and dug in the sand for pirate treasure. How could we have been who we've been without you?

Milne's poem about Halfway Down the Stairs continues "Halfway down the stairs isn't up and isn't down. It isn't in the nursery - it isn't in the town." Well, where is Halfway Down the Stairs? Where does that fun-loving, bookish little spirit abide now if it isn't in the town? The spirit of this little bookstore might begin in the nursery - between the pages of Margaret Wise Brown, or Helen Oxenbury or Sandra Boynton. But it's also up in the teenager's messy room as the pages fly by in Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak or down on the musty couch in the basement where a scruffy goth middle schooler hangs out with Ender. It's whirling about in the van's cd player on the way up north as all the voices in Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider fill the long hours, and Dad insists that the player be turned off while he fills the gas tank! It's inside the turquoise cover of Stargirl under the towel at the bottom of the beach bag and between the board pages of Barnyard Dance next to the wipes in the diaper bag. It's behind the plastic pages of the family photo album - that priceless moment of some small person hugging a Wild Thing or posing with a grinning Junie B. Jones. It's under the cold cup of tea on the nightstand of some woman who secretly loves kids book more than her grown-up ones and within the novel without its dust jacket as a grown man reads Harry Potter at Starbucks. It's at the school board meeting when parents rise to their feet to defend their children's freedom to read. It's in the sanctuary when a person in robes encourages children to make the world more beautiful like Miss Rumphius. It's lurking in orderly shelves in school libraries and under the stapler at the corner of a teacher's desk. We've done it you know. All of us, we've snuck this little bookstore's magic into all kinds of nooks and crannies.

Milne's poem goes on. "And all sorts of funny thoughts run around my head." That kid on stairs has always loved funny thoughts - like, that boys actually can enjoy books about girls! That's a funny thought to lots of people! Like, reading at 4 or 5 is not as important as loving books at 4 or 5 so you can enjoy them for the rest of your life. Or here's a funny thought - learning about sex is a lot safer between the pages of a book! All kinds of funny ideas have circulated around here. Like, books never turn a good child bad, but they can sometimes help a "bad" child be loved and understood. Like, children's books should not be sermons; they're not medicine to be administered to cure the ills of the world. At their best, they're great art with the same power to enrich, illuminate and beautify the world embodied in all great art. Children's book as great art - that's a funny idea to a lot of people, but we know better, don't we?

The most comforting part of Milne's poem, though, for all of us going through the Grand Closing of Halfway Down the Stairs comes in those last two lines. "It isn't really anywhere. It's somewhere else instead." I know it feels scary and sad to think of this welcoming little red place no long really being anywhere. The staff will tell you that I've dissolved into tears about it on a regular basis for the last year. I will miss all of you popping in the door with a request, an idea, an opinion, a story about the kids, a hilarious school disaster tale, a political argument, or just the stuff of life in general. I will miss my soul mates on staff - their laughter, their in-jokes, their commiseration - and I know you'll miss them too, their wonderful advice, their welcoming spirit. But Halfway Down the Stairs truly is "somewhere else instead" as long as we carry its energetic, affectionate, book-loving spirit with us. I feel hopeful that years from now, when certain families reach the end of Harry Potter, stories will be told about the Hogwarts graduation at Meadow Brook Hall. Or that a tattered copy of Goodnight Moon will be re-read to soothe a restless great-grandbaby. Or those photo albums will prompt someone to ask, "I love this little fireplace and rocking chair! Where was that taken?" and a story will ensue about this place where a family's reputation as booklovers either began or was nurtured. But most clearly, I picture the "somewhere else instead" inside all those beautiful books that will be passed from generation to generation, sharing their stories so perfectly the instant the covers are opened.

And now, for some mysterious reason that I don't yet fully understand, it's time, after 20 years, for that child in the striped jersey to step off of the staircase and out into the world. We're heading out into the unknown, that child and I. We're off to find new adventures. "Halfway Down the Stairs is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it." That child on the stairs and I thank you for believing that all these years. - Cammie Mannino